![]() In August 1954, Bannister captured the European 1500 meters crown. Seven weeks later, Landy beat Bannister’s record, with a mile in three minutes 57.9 seconds, and, in August, Bannister lowered his own time to three minutes 58.8 seconds, beating Landy at the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada. Then, 210 meters from the tape, he pulled out from behind Chataway to immortalize himself as the first sub-four-minute miler. Bannister urged Brasher to go faster and at the halfway mark called on Chataway to take over from the tiring Brasher. Bannister thought of calling it off, but, after a short rain shower and with a drop in the wind, he said: “Right, I’ll try.”Īfter a false start by pacemaker Brasher, the field of six got away. May 6 was cold, wet and windy – not ideal for a record-breaking attempt. ![]() He enlisted the aid of his training companions and friends, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, top athletes in their own right, as pacemakers. Bannister, by then a medical student at a London hospital, set that day for his attempt. The Oxford University versus Amateur Athletics Association fixture of May 6 was the first competition of the British season of 1954. To Bannister, the challenge was not only to break the barrier but to be the first man to do so. With American Wes Santee trying to lower his US record of four minutes 2.4 seconds, the pressure was on and four-minute-mile fever was mounting. The world record was gradually being whittled down and a number of athletes were considered capable of crashing the four-minute barrier.Īustralia’s great miler, John Landy, recorded a four minutes 2.1 seconds mile in December 1952, and Bannister cut this to four minutes two seconds in June 1953. But he had set his sights on the four-minute-mile – a challenge which had fascinated athletes and enthusiasts for years. Bannister, nicknamed the “lone wolf miler” because he scorned coaches, had worked out his own training schedule to fit in with his studies.Īfter Helsinki, he became the forgotten man of athletics. The press criticized him for faulty training methods. But he managed only fourth place in the Helsinki Games 1,500 meters final. He asked for his name to be withdrawn from a list of 1948 Olympic possibles and continued his careful preparations for the 1952 games. Later that year, he won the mile for Oxford against Cambridge in an athletics meeting.Īll at British Athletics are incredibly saddened by the passing of Sir Roger Bannister at the age of 88.Ī legend in every sense of the word. So he turned to running and his new ambition became to win the 1,500 meters at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952.īannister started a five-year build-up, and, in 1947, at the age of 17, ran his first mile race at Oxford, finishing second in a time of just over five minutes. In 1946, when he went to Oxford, his great ambition was to row against Cambridge in the annual boat race on the Thames.īut Bannister, who stood 1.8 meters tall and weighed only 68 kilograms, was told he was too light to make a first-rate oarsman. Roger Gilbert Bannister, born in Harrow, a London suburb, on March 23, 1929, was a shy, gangling medical student who preferred to be an oarsman rather than a runner. ![]() His achievement opened the physical and psychological door for many other milers, who have since beaten his time of three minutes 59.4 seconds. The record-breaking run was on the Oxford University track during a local athletics meeting, with only a few spectators witnessing the Englishman’s destruction of the myth that no human being could run so fast.īannister made headlines around the world at the age of 25. ![]() He will be greatly missed,” she said on Twitter. “Sir Roger Bannister was a great British sporting icon whose achievements were an inspiration to us all. “He banked his treasure in the hearts of his friends.”īritish Prime Minister Theresa May led the tributes to the former athlete, who later became one of Europe’s leading neurologists and was made a knight. Roger Bannister has died, aged 88, but will live forever in the annals of athletics history as the first man to run a mile in under four minutes.Ī statement from his family on Sunday said: “Sir Roger Bannister died peacefully in Oxford on 3 March, aged 88, surrounded by his family who were as loved by him, as he was loved by them. ![]()
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